A Vancouver Island family is speaking out after their 11-year-old son died in hospital and they say it never should have happened.
“He was a child who loved life, was full of energy, typical boy that wanted to be engaged with different activities and be with friends,” mom Nikki Robbins told Global News.
“He loved his school. He enjoyed the outdoors and he had a dream of being a pilot one day.”
Brayden was his parents’ only child.
“From the day he was born, he loved, he loved things that were in the sky,” Robbins said.
“One of his first words when he was born was light. He told me he came from the light. And so he had this infatuation with things that were above … and planes were one of them, birds.”
Robbins said that Brayden was born with a type of cerebral palsy after he suffered a stroke in utero.
While he was fully functional and independent, Robbins said her son did require some physiotherapy, occupational therapy and support to keep his body strong and to learn how to adapt with his body.
“All his life, he was a part of the health care system,” she said.
Brayden Robbins was 11 years old when he died.
Provided to Global News
When he was four, he was diagnosed with seizures and underwent surgery, which cleared him of the seizures.
“As a result of his brain surgery from the seizures, he did have a bout of hydrocephalus, which is fluid buildup in the brain and he had a procedure done where they did an internal stent in his brain that allowed the fluid to move through the spinal column through the brain and back down to the spinal column so that the fluid would not build up and cause problems,” Robbins added.
She said there were no concerns after that surgery.
About five years ago, he developed a brain bleed from falling off a playground and hitting his head, but he recovered.
In August 2024, Brayden underwent surgery on his right arm to help the tendons in his hand move more easily, and he continued with physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
“But then what happened was in November of 2024, on the 12th, he developed symptoms that were very different,” Robbins said.
“And so he started to complain of a headache, as well as this, like his neck was being pulled to one side uncontrollably, so he couldn’t control the movement of his head. And he said he was having a severe headache with tingling in his nose.”
His parents took him to the emergency room in Comox.
“The ER doctor consulted by phone with a pediatrician that was on call and the pediatrician did not come in and see Brayden,” Robbins said.
“But he was diagnosed with torticollis, so muscle spasms in the neck is basically what they diagnosed him with and he was sent home with a muscle relaxant, Tylenol, ibuprofen.”
Robbins said that when her husband expressed concern about their son, given his medical history, they were sent home without getting a CT scan or any diagnostic testing.
“Although there was compassion and care there, we did not feel that … the level of our concern was taken seriously,” she added.
Over the next few days, the family contacted Brayden’s pediatrician, kept him home from school and his symptoms seemed to improve, although he still complained of a headache.
Six days later, Robbins said that Brayden’s symptoms came back even worse and he was stiff and screaming in pain.
He was admitted right away but Robbins said the hospital claimed to not be aware of Brayden’s medical history.
“I asked for a CT scan a number of times during the time there,” she said.
“And it was, I’m not sure if it was heard or dismissed… to be honest. I can’t say. But I just know that it wasn’t done.”
Brayden slipped into a coma and the pediatrician ended up video conferencing with a doctor at Victoria Children’s Hospital to remove fluid from his brain.
“The doctor told us that he would have died if they hadn’t done that,” Robbins said.
“And then a couple hours later, they had to do it again because his heart rate was just going too high.”
They were also told that there was no transport team available due to the weather and staffing levels. There was also no pediatrician on staff that night.
“From our experience, there was a breakdown in communication for us,” Robbins said.
“You have to understand that even though I am a nurse … I, in that moment, I’m a mother and … my son was suffering and I wanted to nurture and console him.
“My job in that moment was not to be the nurse, so I put complete trust in the health care providers there.”
When Brayden did finally receive a CT scan, they realized he had three times the amount of fluid on his brain.
He passed away at 9:55 a.m. on Nov. 19, about 15 hours after he arrived at the hospital.
“We believe that if he had received a CT scan earlier, that he would still be alive today,” Robbins said.
“They would have diagnosed him, they would have been able to support him with what he needed and transport him to where he needed to be to receive the care that was necessary.”
Brennan Day, the MLA for Courtenay-Comox and the official Opposition critic for Rural Health and Senior’s Health, said the Ministry of Health needs to do a deep dive into how the system failed Brayden and his family.
“There’s no one thing that led to this, but a series of events combined with overtaxed and understaffed ER ended up leaving this child behind,” he said.
Day said that he has heard from emergency room doctors and nurses in the North Island region that are, at times, taking care of 30 patients each.
“So you can only imagine the pressure that those nurses and doctors are under to try and do their best in a system that is on the brink of collapse or has collapsed,” he said.
“Let’s be realistic with what this means. This is not a failure of the doctors or the nurses. In this case, this is a failure of the system to adequately protect them to do their jobs and deliver care in a meaningful way in British Columbia.”
Global News reached out to the Ministry of Health for comment but did not hear back in time for deadline.
Robbins said they want to see a number of changes happen following her son’s death, including mandatory pediatric emergency training, formal family-centred communication protocols to ensure families are heard and documented, standardized use of the Provincial Transport Network (PTN) for complex pediatric cases and immediate investment in pediatric transport staffing and response capabilities.
The family eventually received a critical incident report but Robbins said it lacked accountability or determination for change.
“We just want places to own where they can do these better,” she said.
“It’s appalling, what’s happening right now and it led to the death of our son… we’re hurt, we’re outraged, we’re sad and our lives are forever changed.”